


Saltwater

by incogneat_oh



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Minor description of injury, Robin!Dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 07:17:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12765891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incogneat_oh/pseuds/incogneat_oh
Summary: Alfred’s sitting on one of the kitchen stools at the bath side, sleeves rolled past his elbows, half-leaning over the full-sized tub. There are strawberry bubbles nearly to the ceiling, the floor puddled with soapy water, and a single, lonely rubber duck.“How’s our boy doing?” Bruce asks the man, rescuing the toy and dropping it back in the tub.Could almost be a follow-up tothis, but not deliberately.





	Saltwater

–

Bruce can hear splashing and running water from the hallway. Dick’s laughing, too, Alfred speaking over it all, but he can’t make out any words.

And he walks through the boy’s dimly-lit bedroom toward the en suite, habitually stepping around and over the occasional mound of toys, books, and clothes. Already, he can smell the strawberry-scented bubble bath that’s Dick’s favourite. 

He knocks, twice. Then he opens the door. 

Alfred’s sitting on one of the kitchen stools at the bath side, sleeves rolled past his elbows, half-leaning over the full-sized tub. There are strawberry bubbles nearly to the  _ceiling_ , the floor puddled with soapy water, and a single, lonely rubber duck.

“How’s our boy doing?” Bruce asks the man, rescuing the toy and dropping it back in the tub. And then, “I like your beard, Dick. Will you keep it, do you think?”

And the kid, sitting drenched in bubbles in the centre of the bath, raises a self-conscious hand to his bubble-beard. Says, his high little voice bouncing off the tile, “I don’t think it’s ‘specially practical, Bruce.”

“Maybe not,” Bruce concedes, and Dick shifts, wiping off the bubbles with his good hand. 

He says, mournfully, proffering his plastic-bagged broken arm, new cast blindingly white, “Was gonna do a mohawk… but it’s hard with one hand.” 

“How is it going in here?” Bruce says, brow wrinkling. “You’re okay, right?”

And Dick grins, a little sluggish but still perfectly happy, says, “Got my anti-drowning buddy!” and high-fives Alfred. 

“Indeed,” Alfred says, deadpan, bubbles up to his elbows. And he says, “Come on, sir, your mohawk will not stand  _itself_ up.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Dick says, scootches closer, dodging his bath toys, until he’s close enough to sit with his back to Alfred, his bony, soap-slick shoulder blades pressed against the porcelain. “Thanks, Alfie.”

“Heaven forbid a bath is wasted  _sans_ mohawk,” Alfred says, squirting some shampoo into his palm. 

Bruce, leaning against the sink, smiles.

“That’s what I’m sayin’,” Dick agrees readily, drowsily, his water-puckered toes poking up above the surface of the bath on the opposite wall. He tilts his head back, further against Alfred’s hands. Closes his eyes.

And Alfred shampoos his hair very gently, the foam lather turning faintly pink from the blood in the kid’s hair. Occasionally he murmurs instructions to Dick, to lift or duck his head. 

And then– “Let me see, sir,” and Dick turns around quickly, grin and soap faux-hawk, still dripping wet and half-obscured by bubbles. 

“Should I get the camera?” Bruce says, and Dick slaps his good hand over his mouth with a wet-sounding  _smack_ , says “Ohmy _God_ Bruce, no, I don’t have any clothes on!”

“Very well, then, Lil Ricky G,” says Alfred, and Bruce knows the man well enough to know when he is suppressing a smile, “Shall we go ahead and rinse? Make you Master Richard again?”

“Okay,” Dick agrees, obediently tilting his head back. Sits carefully still, eyes scrunched shut, while Alfred washes out the shampoo. 

“And what’s the verdict, sir?” Alfred asks eventually, sitting back on the stool. “Clean enough?”

“I’m so clean I won’t need another bath for a week,” Dick says confidently, and Alfred laughs.

“If only it worked that way, Master Dick,” and he motions to Bruce to hand him a towel from the folded stack on the bathroom counter. Then he goes about gently drying Dick’s hair, tells him “Plug, please–” and while the bathwater– still mostly bubbles– starts to drain, he instructs Bruce to hold out a towel and step closer.

Then– and Bruce is unclear on how, exactly, this happens– he has a towel-full of wet 8-year-old, and a spreading damp spot on the front of his shirt from where Dick rests his head. Smothering his sigh, he adjusts the folds of the towel and says, “Did you lay clean pyjamas on the bed, Alfred?”

“Don’t I always, sir?”

And Bruce, looking down at his dripping cargo, says “How’s your head?”

Dick tilts his head, considering the question seriously. And then he says, “It feels like how if you fall and you hit your knee… and then when you walk, it’s like. You  _know_ you’re not gonna fall, but it feels like you still might, you know?”

Bruce  _hmm_ s. “How about I carry you, then, just in case?”

Dick contemplates it, perfectly at ease a good two feet of the ground. And then he says, “Dealio.”

And Bruce shifts the boy in his arms, careful– he will never stop being surprised at how breakable this kid feels– and starts toward the bedroom, Dick chattering absently in his ear. 

Over Dick’s head, Alfred gives him a Look. And Bruce nods.

They can’t let this happen again.

**END.**

**Author's Note:**

> Also on [tumblr.](http://incogneat-oh.tumblr.com/post/100506590207/saltwater-drabble)


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